Mike J wrote:he is playing badly at the moment and im sure nobody is as pissed off about it as himself at the moment. the lad is a winner who is short on confidence. anyone who plays the game at any level knows how shit it feels to go through a bad patch.
we need to play him through this patch though, its no good him sitting on the bench, he is still one of our very best players imo.
If you think back to last year, Irelands best play was his ability to see a pass and link up with Robinho when the team was on the offensive.
Sven - defensive style, very poor
Hughes - attacking style, player of the year
Hughes - less attacking style, very poor
Mancini - defensive style, very poor
Its all well and good allowing him time to "come good", but is it feasible given his record under 3 different managers playing a defensive style have been equally poor that he simply cannot play in a role which involves him receiving the ball with his back to goal. As much as I like the guy, if this is the problem, I have to ask why persevere when he has never, ever shown his ability in this type of system.
What we have seen that if the team are not rampaging forwards constantly during a game, he is pretty much a spare part. When we have seen him play excellent through balls on the odd occasion recently, it has been from a starting position of receiving the ball facing goal - exactly how it was last year with the interplay between him and Robbie.
I could live with him not bothering to track back if he simply worked out how to get around this problem, but he seems either unwilling or unable to adapt his game to this style.